the vienna woods and a walk through kohlmarkt

Yesterday Paige and I walked up a street in our neighborhood to the Vienna woods. The woods are roughly 400 square miles and are a popular place to go jogging, which is nice because of how close it is to our house. They're very scenic and beautiful so I can't wait to see what it looks like there when the snow sticks.

Awesome view from near our house.

Entrance to a walking trail in the Vienna woods.

Later that day we went to church. We decided to step out of our comfort zone a little and go to the German speaking meeting instead of the international one. I didn't understand a word that they were saying, but it was still interesting and I like the idea of immersing myself in as much German as possible.

This morning I had my first classes of the semester. My first class was German, which I can tell is going to be hard. Honestly, I have a feeling I'm going to learn more of the language just from being around people who speak it than from the actual class. The first words I've picked up are "recht" and "links", which mean right and left. The subway always says "ausstieg links" or "ausstieg rechs" to tell you which side to exit from. Hopefully this will come in handy when asking for directions!


After class I walked around the innere stadt ("inner city") and found a street called "kohlmarkt". Apparently it got its name because it used to be a coal market. Now it's a very high end shopping area with gorgeous architecture. I don't think anything there is within my budget (think Tiffany & Co and Gucci) but just the sight of the buildings is enough to make me want to go back there again, especially at night when I heard it's even prettier. 

Kohlmarkt.

Apparently at this classy restaurant, you can have literally any meal you want delivered from anywhere in the world if you order it 24 hours in advance and have a couple thousand dollars to spare.

The Hofburg Palace.